This process is part of what we call gamification, which is the .... For example, in a call centre an employee may accep
Interview
Figure 1: Profile page with avatar, progress bar, badges, points, etc
Figure 2: Leaderboard with information on other users
Scenario (Picture 1) Imagine that in your workplace, you have a personal profile that shows your activities, achievements, to-do tasks, etc. In this personal profile, you can have your avatar, which shows your name and photo and maybe your status (e.g. busy, angry, late, happy, etc), and you can also see the list of things you have done, or you should do. For every task you do, you get some points, and for some specific tasks or after collecting certain points, you get badges. Also a progress bar shows how much of a task you have done and how much is left to do. (Picture 2) There is a leaderboard which ranks your colleagues by the points they have earned. This leaderboard shows top achievers amongst your colleagues. You can also see how much everyone has achieved by clicking on their names. This reveals their total points, their achievements, their badges, etc. The whole point is that this system allows you to see how much you and other colleagues have progressed and achieved in your daily routines. It may also enable the managers and admins to see how much their staff have progressed and achieved. This process is part of what we call gamification, which is the use of game elements in daily tasks in order to motivate and entertain people at their workplace. This study is focused on the effects of gamification design on work ethics. You will be asked questions based on a previous expert study on gamification and their opinions on the effects that gamification may have on a working environment. Please bear in mind that different employees with different performances and personalities may react differently. For example, while revealing an employee’s status might be troublesome or even embarrassing for some (statuses like lazy or late), it may attract other employees and encourage them (statuses like busy or happy). The bottom line is that there are no right or wrong answers.
Would you please introduce yourself? How old are you, and where do you work? What is your job in your workplace? Have you heard about gamification before?
1. From the perspective of ethics at work, specifically from the tension perspective, how would an employee feel if the workplace implements gamification techniques like (i) a leaderboard which iteratively shows the list of top-performers (ii) employees getting badges in their profile reflecting their expertise level (it could go up and down depending on the recent performance) (iii) labels or avatar, reflecting the current status e.g. (active, inactive, busy, free, late, etc) (iv) a progress bar which shows to an employee, and perhaps other employees, the extent to which that employee has completed the task, e.g. the progress in handling new emails in customer services, the progress in handling a complex case, etc.? How would all these effect the tension and stress at work place in employees? (refer to picture 2). 2. Do you think there are negative and positive effects of these techniques on the relationship among team members and their perceptions of each other? In other words, do you think that these techniques could lead to a change in the attitude, interactions and collaborations among colleagues at the workplace? (refer to picture 2) 3. Certain gamification techniques (e.g. leaderboards, badges, points, progress bars and avatars) reveal a good deal of information about employees in their workplace. Such information could be visible to other colleagues and managers for different reasons. Examples: a progress bar of a colleague may indicate how busy he/she is. A status may reflect an employee’s mood, something that an employee may or may not be willing to share with others. Points usually explain to colleagues how efficient an employee is, while that employee may or may not be willing to expose his points to other colleagues. Therefore, while gamification may aid efficiency and transparency at workplace, it may or may not be preferred by some employees. How do you view them from the angle of revealing information about your current activity, performance and status? Are there any preferences how such information should be revealed when gamification is applied? (refer to picture 1 and 2) 4. Gamification may be seen as a monitoring mechanism, which could cause some stress on the person. For example, it could be argued that the use of leaderboard, badges, points and progress bars may create some sort of stress on an employee to finish the work strictly on time and also to increase productivity. Some others may argue that this is fair and good as it reflects their outstanding achievements and would not cause any tension. Rather, it could be seen as a tension-relief system as it makes the job more entertaining. How do you think of the use of gamification from the perspective of acting as a monitoring system on employees at workplace?
5. Information revealed through gamification may give profiles to people and create classes among colleagues. It could suggest that some people perform better than others in certain tasks, hence they get more badges, appear in leaderboards, have status and better representative avatars etc. Other techniques like progress bars would make it clear to others how fast a certain employee is in doing certain tasks. Since birds of the same feather flock together, all this may lead to employees with similar points or the same badges group together. How do you see that from the perspective of creating clusters of people, ranks and classes and affecting the interaction and collaboration among colleagues? As always, please let us know whether you think of positive and/or negative consequences. 6. As stated before, gamification can capture information about employees’ productivity, status and achievements and even failures at the workplace. Similar to other sorts of data typically collected from employees (e.g. the regular appraisal) this could raise privacy concerns. Are there any particular observations of concerns related to the data collected from gamification? What would you accept or reject gathering and would you have any preferences or requirements on how this should be done and by whom it should be viewed and how? 7. Do you think it would affect the employees’ attitude toward their tolerance of data collected about them when they have a high desire to get the reward, e.g. being in the top 10 or having a badge of “Expert” or having a nicer avatar? In other words, do you think that gamification could be attractive to the point where an employee accepts, perhaps subconsciously, data being collected about them as the reward compensates those concerns and perhaps makes them less noted? 8. Do you think that gamification will drive employees to work more, in terms of time and efficiency, in order to be listed in the top employees’ leaderboard or to get more points or badges, or to enhance their avatar etc.? In other words, do you view gamification in certain contexts as a mechanism to get from employees a maximized efficiency and perhaps more than what they would typically need to do? For example, shorter breaks or working overtime to get more points, etc. 9. Do you think that employees should have the right to see what information is stored in the system about their work activities collected by means of gamification and who can view it and for which purposes this information are stored? When and how do you prefer to see that and what would be the main reasons for it? 10. Do you think that the temptation of being listed as a top employee or winning a prize, can make some of the employees do what they would not have done because of some reasons or belief? For example, in a call centre an employee may accept to tolerate the language and the anger to get more points. In a collaborative group, some colleagues
may tolerate the bad quality of the work of other team members so that the team gets better image through gamification. 11. Do you think that the culture and the norms of an organization and the management style affect their views of gamification from the perspective of ethics at work? E.g. certain environments view competition mechanics (points, leaderboard, etc) a natural practice while others view it as a source of stress and unhelpful for the working environment? 12. How do you think that employees’ characteristics make a difference on their perception of how ethical a gamification technique is when used for a certain task in their workplace? Some employees, for example, view progress bars unethical because it encourages staff to do tasks in a cursory manner which could be sometimes a bad choice, e.g. when responding to customers in a health centre. 13. Do you have anything to add?
